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Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper pushes parole funding increase

By Christopher N. OsherThe Denver Post

Posted:
11/11/2013 12:01:00 AM MST

Updated:
11/11/2013 03:26:11 PM MST

Gov. John Hickenlooper (Helen H. Richardson, Denver Post file)

Gov. John Hickenlooper wants to increase spending on parole operations by 25 percent in the next fiscal year — a move that could lead to more parole officers, an overhaul of re-entry services and more treatment for parolees.

The governor's proposed state budget would increase parole spending by $10 million to bring the total amount spent up to $49.4 million.

In budget documents, officials with the Colorado Department of Corrections said they still are forming a plan to spend the proposed funding.

"Division resources, structure, and operations, in some instances, are not properly positioned to manage the significant risk inherent with the parole population," department officials state in the documents.

They add: "Current facility/re-entry preparation is inadequate to ameliorate offenders sufficiently to meet the demands of parole."

Steve Hager, interim director of the parole division, declined requests for comment. Corrections spokesman Roger Hudson said Hager is waiting until plans for spending the money are finalized. Officials hope the final plan will be ready for submission to the legislature by Jan. 15, Hudson said.

"We're very interested to see what they come up with," said State Sen. Pat Steadman, a Denver Democrat who is chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, which recommends funding priorities for the legislature. Lawmakers must approve any funding increase before it becomes final.

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The proposed $10 million increase follows a series of articles in The Denver Post that found Colorado parolees have committed new crimes, used drugs and disappeared for months without getting sent back to prison. The newspaper uncovered 29 murder cases since 2002 in which parolees violated conditions of their release or committed a crime and were allowed to remain free.

One proposal that will get serious consideration, according to the documents, would be to make state money available for "additional treatment and support services" for parolees. Often, parolees are responsible for treatment costs of $40 per session even when they can't come up with the money, the documents state.

Such services can include sessions for substance abuse, mental health and sex-offender treatment.

A workload study currently underway by the National Center for State Courts to assess whether Colorado's parole officers are overworked will help shape any changes, officials said.

The proposals will closely follow recommendations from audits released in August by the National Institute of Corrections, an agency of the U.S. Justice Department. Those audits urged Colorado to develop new protocols and training for electronic monitoring of parolees, increase community services for parolees and do a better job of determining their weaknesses.

Hickenlooper also is proposing to continue funding, at a cost of $1 million annually, for a new fugitive unit to round up parolees who have absconded. The unit is comprised of nine parole officers and a supervisor.

The fugitive unit was one of the initiatives made after the killings of corrections chief Tom Clements and pizza delivery driver Nathan Leon. Authorities believe parolee Evan Ebel killed Clements and Leon in March after Ebel tore off his electronic-monitoring bracelet. Authorities have said it took parole officials five days to realize Ebel had absconded after he removed the monitoring device, and an additional day to obtain an arrest warrant for him.

The fugitive unit is supposed to drive down the number of absconders and fugitives in the parole system by 25 percent next fiscal year, down to 5.4 percent of the total parole population, according to the documents.

The governor's budget would raise the parole board's budget by $260,000, a 16 percent bump above current funding and separate from the $10 million increase. Budget documents state that the money is needed to hire more support staff, including a new data analyst to examine parole board decisions and recidivism issues.

In Colorado prisons, 1,694 sex offenders are within four years of parole eligibility but on a backlog awaiting treatment. "With previous resource levels," the department said, that backlog "could take 20 years or more to process."

Because sex offenders sentenced under a lifetime supervision law must complete a treatment program before they can be paroled, they are accorded the highest priority for treatment. As a result, sex offenders serving fixed sentences "are being released to the community without the benefit of treatment, increasing the risk to public safety," the department said.

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